Minnesota State University Reporter

Issue date: 10/27/09 Section: MSyou Fall '09

Casella is on sabbatical in Northern Ireland studying films from the silent era and attending various film festivals. She decided to skip the well-known Cannes Film Festival in favor of smaller ones in Cairo, Ibiza, Dublin, Berlin and Annecy, an international film festival in France.

Minnesota State professor Donna Casella isn't one to stay put. From her extensive worldwide travels, it's apparent the film expert doesn't care to just sit comfortably, but rather experience all the life the world has to offer.

Casella is currently on a one-year sabbatical, living in the Northern Ireland town of Lurgan, where she is researching indigenous Irish films from the silent era for two academic articles she is writing.

"Irish silent films (all Irish productions) do exist (everyone seems surprised by this) and they are very revealing of nationalist themes," Casella said. "I am looking at the place of women in these films in comparison to Irish women of the period who were very involved in the Independence fight and the Civil War and I have been reading the women's memoirs."

But the globetrotting New York native isn't simply limiting her stay away from MSU to her extensive research in early Celtic cinema.

"I went to the Venice Film Festival and [last Friday] I [went] to the London Film Festival," Casella said. Other festivals scheduled on her trip include Cairo, Dublin, Berlin, Belfast, Ibiza, Edinburgh and Annecy, the International Animation Film Festival in France Casella dubbed "a biggie."

"All these festivals are international, but contain a strong local film component," Casella said. "I decided to skip Cannes and go for some smaller ones.'

"Venice, Berlin and Cannes are the three biggies, so I am doing two out of the three."

Casella added that she has and will end up viewing an average of one to two films per day for a week during each festival.

Yet Casella hasn't limited her time off from teaching to live an all work and no play lifestyle. She is also taking breaks from her research and film festival attendance to do some serious hiking and sight-seeing throughout Europe.

After completing a long hike on the British-owned, French coastal Isle of Jersey, Casella has just finished planning a 20-day walk along the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland that she will undertake in November.

"I am looking to see how the villages and cities have changed now that the "Troubles" have subsided," Casella said.

The "Troubles" Casella refers to of course is the unresolved conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland that still carries repercussions in the area.

"Sectarian violence has started up in pockets around Northern Ireland, there was some trouble in Lurgan a few weeks ago," Casella said. "A burning van on the railroad tracks blocked my return from Belfast. We don't anticipate a repeat of the Troubles, but the conflict is still there."

Casella is also plans to write an article on her 20-day excursion, as well as journey on a team hike in the Sinai (Peninsula in Egypt) in April.

Nate Brennan is the Reporter variety editor

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